HegemonicDistortion’s Comments

The cost of encryption is “ultimately measured in a mounting number of victims — men, women and children who are the victims of crimes, crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence," Barr said during a speech at a cybersecurity conference.

How exactly would the lack of encryption have helped Barr prevent this shooting? This is pure fearmongering.

Swisher is a tech bubble herself. She seems to believe she asks all the hard questions, has such deep insights, and breaks deep news (see for example all the self-cites to her interview with Zuckerberg at SXSW a few years ago, which she constantly references in new pieces, and which she seems to believe was profound, powerful work).

But the reality is that her work is mostly the hot air of a hype bubble -- superficial, sometimes to the point of being silly. The piece cited in Mike's article above is one. Another is a fairly recent piece (also in the NYT) about the potential societal benefits of tech companies creating "chief ethical officer" positions, which she took at face value and treated earnestly, seemingly oblivious to the notion that these might just be pure PR moves and that no actual power would be accorded to such figureheads whatsoever.

Well, one of our legislature's recent priorities has been to try to block city/county govts from banning plastic bags, so let's not get hasty with the accolades yet. The year is young and still so many opportunities to propose backward or stupid legislation.

Google/Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple are sitting on piles and piles of cash. It's stunning that -- especially given their cash reserves -- they would leave themselves so exposed to Comcast, Charter, and AT&T like this. They could jointly charter a new corporation (maybe even a non-profit, to collect some good will) to build out fiber and become an ISP; they could also join forces to put political pressure on Congress to make deployment easier and to regulate the current broadband monopoly/duopoly more strongly.

Is this really the look the Democrats want, upon finally re-capturing a bit of power, to go caping for AT&T in the House of Representatives? It's [stuff] like this that makes people think maybe they're another corporate party or something.

I don't know why the Googles and Amazons and Apples don't form a consortium for widespread deployment. They have to know the value of not being subject to Comcast and AT&T's tolls. Of course all the better for the people if municipalities (or whole states) do this themselves, but surely it's in these mega-corps long-term interest to undertake it.

It's the charging people to remove it that's the problem. It's even more of a racket if that was done without regard to the disposition of the charge.

I don't find anything above at all persuasive as to why a mugshot should automatically be a publicly-available "public record." Fingerprints, too? Photos of victims used in a prosecution? I can see when there should be times a mugshot can become publicly available (e.g. if a convict or arrestee has escaped or jumped bail), but not any reason it must automatically be merely because the government took it.

Reading comprehension fail. The points in this piece as they pertain to the word "noninvasive" aren't at all about the medical meaning. Quite the opposite, it's entirely predicated on that correct meaning. Here, it's just a rhetorical reuse of the word in terms of its implications in law and civil liberties, contrasting the very different implications of that noninvasiveness in medical vs legal contexts -- to wit, the ability for officers to "search" an individual for evidence of criminal behavior (from something every person leaves behind every minute of their lives) without any prior suspicion. It's the noninvasive nature (medical) of the diagnostic technique that creates the great potential for invasive (legal) abuse by officers.

Ethically, it's obvious you're attempting to discredit very important discussion of civil liberty concerns by denigrating the piece and the author via a bogus use of pedantic "concerns" that are entirely deceptive as to the point of the piece.

Marsha has overplayed her hand this time, though. She's running for Corker's Senate seat against a popular Democrat who was two-term governor and mayor of Nashville.

The net neutrality and ISP privacy regs negations make her look worse (that she's a near-Palinesque moron already makes her look bad). People in TN are particularly angry about their internet and cable bill (and all manner of Blackburn style Internet f*ckery), seeing Chattanooga's amazing municipal broadband deployment; Nashvillians are doubly so, given the way AT&T and Comcast have stymied Google Fiber.

There's always a chance for a double-digit IQ conservative candidate in this state, but she will be in for a hell of a fight and may well lose. No doubt Comcast has a chair all warmed up for her.

The causality here is entirely reversed. These troll ads didn't "sow discord," they were "successful" precisely because of great extant discord. The idea that racial disharmony, or antipathy toward the political establishment, was started or influenced by Russians is on its face absurd.

This "influence campaign" narrative has evolved with changing facts. At first they were said to clearly be about supporting Trump. Then when that was exposed as false it was changed to "sowing discord," a term so meaningless as to be utterly useless. When Facebook found that some of these posts were just about puppies, people like Clint Watts hilariously tried to spin that as ominous unknown future operation.

What it really shows, though, is that any Russian trolls were taking advantage of discord and puppy cuteness to drive ad clicks and shares. There's a reason they're a troll farm.

Scratch just below the surface of these pro "Russia influence campaign" pushers and you'll find neocon hawks (like Max Boot, Bill Kristol, etc.), clueless Hollywood liberals (like Rob Reiner), and Hillary campaign officials and cultists. It's an especially appealing narrative for the last two groups, because it conveniently explains away their electoral loss and allows comfy white (neo-)liberals to feel righteous while avoiding any need for more fundamental reform needed to confront racism and economic inequality. These are the very tactics used in the 50s and 60s to undermine civil rights and pro-worker advocates.

Or so was always inferred to discredit anti-war activists, which brings us back to present problem: ridiculous claims of practically magical Russian propaganda effectiveness to try to de-legitimate criticisms of our corporatist establishment.

Russians didn't even budge Americans' deep divisions. The rifts have been growing especially the 90s, and they've especially become sharp due to the rocketing inequality that both major parties have facilitated.

Well, no, neither of them threw them out for the world to see. Snowden handed them off to journalists, and Manning to Wikileaks, which in turn collaborated with journalistic outlets to write the stories. Wikileaks even warned the State Department when they became aware that the cables were about to be published. (Video of that is in Laura Poitras's film *Risk* )